Category Archives: Investing

Behind the gloomy headlines, today’s update of the OECD’s leading indicator indices suggests that global economic weakness is abating, consistent with an earlier improvement in monetary trends. The forecasting approach employed here relies on the Friedmanite rule that changes in … Read More

Human beings don’t usually behave as abstract logic dictates. Take decision making. Everybody knows that a decision not to decide is a decision.  Economists have the concept of opportunity cost. There are songs about “the road you didn’t take”, there … Read More

By Nick Kirrage. ‘Drawdown’ is the term used in investment to describe the amount a share price has fallen from its peak over a given period and the reason it can resonate with investors is their perception of pain is … Read More

By Kevin Murphy. Financial crises can leave investors nursing many psychological scars and one of these is known by behavioural finance experts as the availability heuristic. That is a complicated-sounding term for the relatively straightforward idea that we tend to … Read More

The markets expect a Greek default and time is running out. However, banks still haven’t recognised enough of this loss, highlighting the pent-up risk in the sector. Deep-seated scepticism continues to drive market volatility and this will continue until a … Read More

By Kevin Murphy. As the technology boom of the late 1990s came to the boil, Cisco, Dell, Intel and Microsoft emerged as the four darlings of the market and by 1999 had even earned their own collective label – The … Read More

By Kevin Murphy. Visit any supermarket and you will see shoppers swarming to take up those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ offers that now seem to happen every week. People love discounts and not just on food – the same holds true for clothes, … Read More

I found myself shouting at the TV today, something I usually do only when GB or England are competing. In this case it was because of a comment on the stock market. The reporter said that markets were down and … Read More

As the US launches $400bn ‘Operation Twist’ in a desperate attempt to kick-start the economy, concerns arise over how effective this will be. It’s true that something needs to be done and inflation restricts the options open to the Fed … Read More

By Nick Kirrage. If the proverbial alien had visited earth in March 2009 when the shares of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) were trading at about 12p, they might initially be impressed on returning today to find that price had … Read More